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How Frog Hospital got its name

News and commentary by Fred Owens in LaConner, a small town in the Skagit Valley. The story behind the name: There was once a grocery store in a quonset hut, run by Mr. Grobschmidt. Clyde, an old drunk who lived out on the river, thought that Mr. Grobschmidt looked like a frog, so he took to calling the store the "Frog Hospital." Now the quonset hut, Mr. Grobschmidt, and Clyde are all gone -- only this blog survives to carry on the Frog Hospital tradition.

Sunday, November 12, 2017

I
received four deeply personal emails from friends in Wilson County.
They each live only a few miles from the church in Sutherland Springs
and they each know of people who were in that church last Sunday when
the shooting started.

I've
known Wilson County since I went down there to work at the newspaper
ten years ago. I stayed for 18 months and made many friends. They still
send me the newspaper every week, so I keep up.

Jack.
No last name. He does not like his name and business used. I would have
to ask his permission, and I expect he would decline. His message to
me was private. He employs well over two dozen people in a manufacturing
business some ten miles from the church where the killer shot the
people. Jack knows the Holcomb family that lost so many members. He
knows the road that goes by the church, and the trees and the sky and
the weather. Jack has lived most of his life in south Texas. In his
email he gave me news of various people who were in the church or
related in some way.

Then Jack ended his message by writing: "Thank
you for your prayers. We all in Wilson
County have heavy hearts
and this will stay with us all our lives."

---
"heavy hearts and this will stay with us all our lives." That's what
he said and I know the man. He is friendly, courteous and not inclined
to emotional display.

Elaine
wrote to me, a woman my age, we discuss family news on the email and
debate politics. Her views are fairly conservative and mine are not. We
were having just such an argument last Sunday morning when the shooting
started. She had just written, after a disagreement, "but we're still
friends, right?" and I replied yes, of course.

Elaine
has spent her life in Wilson County. Actually she grew up in Karnes
County, just a few miles away. Elaine is the oldest of nine children,
and from that role of being the oldest, she has developed a good habit
of giving direction to people. She runs a business with a staff of 25 or
so.

But she wrote in her email, after the tragedy, that she can't sleep. She wrote, "Al and I do appreciate your comments. Things will never be the same here. I
wake up in the morning (when I can sleep) and then realize all over
again that this horrible thing really did happen to our friends and
neighbors."

She
can't sleep. That seems to be a small thing, but to me it's huge -- to
be robbed of the peace that comes over Wilson County on a quiet evening
in November.

Lois
is the oldest of my friends in Wilson County. She writes a breezy
column for the newspaper most weeks, and talks about old times on the
farm where she grew up.

She wrote:

Yes,
it was horrible, IS horrible. When you are in the midst of something
like this, it changes you. It has changed me. This week, since Sunday,
every day my mind goes over and over, how the people in the little
church must have felt, the fear, the horror, etc. and the First
Responders who had to go in there after, to retrieve the wounded and
those that had expired. Even thinking about it now, brings tears to my
eyes and a lump in my throat. Those
families and friends will never be the same. They will have to live
with this all their lives. I knew no one personally that was killed, but
some of my friends did..they had kinfolk and friends.

The whole county has been traumatized -- Floresville, Stockdale, La Vernia, and Poth.

I
have been depressed all week, but I am better now. Life must go on. But I
am still sad.The people of Wilson county are strong, loving and help
each other.

Lois
reads the Bible every day and she does not get depressed. It takes a
calamity of this proportion to rob her of the joy of every single day.
She said she was depressed all week and now she is better. I believe
that. She has great strength. She keeps on praying and sharing the
consolation that comes to her.

Nanette is the editor of the newspaper in Wilson County, has been the editor for ten years now.

She wrote:

Sunday’s act was the slaughter of the innocents, and it was evil.

The
power of good will prevail. We are seeing it daily, the love and
compassion that are being poured out on the survivors, our communities,
and the world around us. Good will continue to prevail, as long as there
is love. And there is abundant love here, despite the horrific events
of last Sunday.

The
slaughter of the innocents, 26 people, young and old, in a church deep
in the heart of Texas, all heads bowed in prayer, and they died. I don't
call them victims. I believe I will never use that word again. They
were all innocent.

Those
are the emails I got from four friends who live very near to the church
in Sutherland Springs where the shooting started last Sunday morning.

I'm
going to tell those four friends something good, because I watched this
all on TV. The whole nation was watching it, and what they saw and what
they felt is that Wilson County is a very good place to live, and the
people who live there are good folks from top to bottom.

The
national media circus overwhelmed the area with a hundred satellite
trucks and two hundred pushy journalists, but they're gone now, gone to
the next disaster.

Wilson County is left to itself once again, and they will deal with this as they must.

Thanksgiving
comes in less than two weeks. The people of Wilson County will cook
turkeys and watch football games and eat too much just like the rest of
us. They will bow their heads and give thanks for what they have, and
they do have a lot to be thankful for.

Saturday, November 04, 2017

I
was humming a tune, a nice little ditty that I had composed. Then I
realized I wrote the song twenty years ago. It's time for a new song.

Seven Years since I left LaConner and moved to California

Seven
years ago, I closed up Hedlin's Produce Stand for the winter. I packed
up my 1993 Red Toyota and drove out of LaConner, leaving that blessed
town once and for all, heading for sunny California.

Seven
years in California. I miss my friends in LaConner. I miss the Skagit
Valley and all those green fields, but I am much happier in Santa
Barbara. I love the blue skies. I love wearing shorts and sandals. If I
start to complain about anything, I just head for the beach with a
towel and a book.

A Democrat, but not a proper Democrat

I
have this unfortunate tendency to think freely and wander off the
reservation. I keep writing what I honestly think, and then I delete
it. I cannot seem to get it right. The situation is too confusing. But
let me try with a few common progressive goals that I support.

I
support an increase in the minimum wage. I support the forgiveness of
student loan debt. I support the estate tax -- you can call it the
death tax if you want, but I support it.

I support legal abortion. I support legal marijuana. I support same sex marriage. I oppose the death penalty.

Those
are fairly standard positions for a Democrat like me, but when we get
to cultural issues I am somewhat of a dinosaur. I admire Christopher
Columbus, Robert E. Lee and Mickey Mantle. Yes, I have read Howard Zinn.
Zinn serves as a useful corrective to the main story, but he is not the
new gospel of truth. Don't give me new myths and don't ask me to
believe in new idols.

I have never
respected the political judgment of actors. I intensely admire the film
work of Meryl Streep, George Clooney and Matt Damon, but off screen
they have nothing to say.

If I was a
Democrat running for Congress in 2018 I would keep my distance from
Hollywood. Don't go to their parties and don't accept their money. It's
getting very toxic in La La Land.

Enough of that.

Garden News. I
made $532 in October doing garden work for my seven customers. I charge
$20 per hour and I work several hours each day. Last week I pruned the
Cecil Brunner hedge rose for the Swiss people. Next week I will strip
the ivy off the back fence at a rental property. It will take me two
hours to strip the ivy. I know that because I already did it once
earlier in the summer. Then the darn ivy grew back again. I suppose I
can look at that as job security.

Every
week I go to work at the pre-school garden. It is great fun working
among the little tots. I trim the trumpet vine, I dead head the
geraniums, and I look about for what needs doing. The last time I was
there they had spilled straw all over the parking place in front of the
school. They buy bales of straw to strew around the play area as a
protection against injury. They unloaded the new bales of straw in the
parking area, leaving heaps of little straw pieces all over the place --
that took a half an hour to sweep up.The pre-school also has a topiary
giraffe. I trim that as needed.

Next comes the
Italian garden, built in terraces on a hill side. It is three stories
from the street to the top of the garden in the back yard. I worked
there yesterday and I loaded six cans of green waste and carried those
six cans down two flights of stairs to the street where they will get
emptied on trash day. That was a bit strenuous.

That's
my work. Do I love gardening? A little. You could say I love it a
little. My customers are very nice people, but honestly, I just need the
money. This is no easy way to make a living. I get hot, tired, dirty
and dusty. I tell people that I do gardening work and they imagine it's a
cool job. It's not.

The Writing Workshop

I read four very short stories at the writing workshop last Saturday. Bathsheba Beckons is my favorite story, about an old farm hand and his romance with the owner of the farm. I stole the plot from Far from the Madding Crowd,
but my reading put them all to sleep. I was reading it out loud and the
other writers were struggling to stay awake and pay attention. Well,
what could I say to that? I liked the story and they did not.

However, I read three other stories as my turn came up -- Berkowitz, about a doctor advising a depressed patient, The Woman with Scars of her Face, about a woman with scars on her face, and The Ten of Swords,
where a man goes to a psychic to discover why his ex-wife stole all his
money. These three stories were received with enthusiasm . The other
writers made sharp and interesting criticisms of this phrase and that
phrase, criticisms that will make useful improvements in the three
stories.

My Struggle

It
may seem natural to you, but I had the hardest time writing the
newsletter this week. I typed then I deleted. Then I typed some more,
then I deleted. I felt so confused and conflicted -- but I realized it
was not me, it was the culture I live in. Trump won the election a year
ago this week, and our nation has become confused and conflicted. I
cannot fix that. I can only write down what I see, and this is a painful
exercise.